One Piece
One Piece (ワンピース Wan Pīsu) is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump since August 4, 1997; the individual chapters are being published in tankōbon volumes by Shueisha, with the first released on December 24, 1997, and the 67th volume released as of August 2012. One Piece follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a young man whose body gains the properties of rubber after inadvertently eating a supernatural fruit, and his diverse crew of pirates, named the Straw Hat Pirates. Luffy explores the ocean in search of the world's ultimate treasure known as the One Piece to become the next Pirate King. Along his journey, Luffy makes several friends and battles a wide variety of villains, many of whom try to kill the Straw Hats. The chapters have been adapted into an original video animation (OVA) produced by Production I.G in 1998, and an anime series produced by Toei Animation, which began broadcasting in Japan in 1999. Since then, the still ongoing series has aired over 575 episodes. Additionally, Toei has developed eleven animated feature films (twelfth movie coming December 15, 2012), an OVA, and five television specials. Several companies have developed various types of merchandising such as a trading card game, and a large number of video games. The manga series was licensed for an English language release in North America by Viz Media. The anime series has been licensed by Funimation Entertainment for an English-language release in North America, although the series was originally licensed and distributed by 4Kids Entertainment. In 2008, One Piece became the highest-circulating manga series. In 2011, Shueisha announced that they sold over 260 million volumes of One Piece manga so far. One Piece is currently ranked as the best-selling series of all time in manga history. Story The series begins with the execution of Gold Roger, a man known as the King of the Pirates (海賊王 Kaizokuō). Just before his death, Roger announces that his treasure, the One Piece (ひとつなぎの大秘宝 (ワンピース) Wan Pīsu), will be up for the taking, causing the Great Pirate Era (大海賊時代 Dai Kaizoku Jidai) to begin. As a result, countless pirates set out to the Grand Line to look for the treasure. Twenty-two years have passed since Roger's execution, and Monkey D. Luffy, a young pirate inspired by Red Haired Shanks, has since set off on a journey from the East Blue Ocean to succeed Roger and find the legendary treasure. He organizes and leads a nine-member crew named the Straw Hat Pirates. Each crew member Luffy encounters eventually become his close friends, including the swordsman Roronoa Zoro, the navigator and thief Nami, the sniper Usopp, the womanizing chef and martial artist Sanji, the doctor and anthropomorphic reindeer Tony Tony Chopper, the archaeologist Nico Robin, the cyborg shipwright Franky, and the musician skeleton Brook. The crew crosses paths with diverse villains, such as Buggy the Clown, many of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, the Navy, who place bounties on Luffy's, Zoro's, and eventually the rest of the crew's heads, and Arlong, a fishman and member of the former Sun Pirates. They encounter Baroque Works, the crime syndicate responsible for a civil war in the desert kingdom of Alabasta, along with fellow pirate Blackbeard, whose dream is also to become the King of the Pirates. The crew also confronts Enel, the ruler of the floating island Skypiea. Later, the crew meets the navy admiral Aokiji, who reveals that Robin was involved in searching for Poneglyphs, stones with markings left by an ancient civilization. The crew also encounters Cipher Pol No. 9, the intelligence agency responsible for the destruction of Robin's homeland, who causes the pirates to declare war on the World Government. After an epic battle at Enies Lobby, the crew defeats CP9 - saving Robin and avenging the lives lost in the destruction. Some time later, the crew prepares to sail off to the New World, the second half of the Grand Line, which is a lot more dangerous than the first half of the Grand Line. Manga Written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece has been serialized in the manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump since August 4, 1997. The chapters have been published into tankōbon volumes by Shueisha since December 24, 1997. As of November 2012, there are 68 tankōbon volumes in Japan. The One Piece series was licensed for an English language release by Viz Media publishes its English-language adaptation of the series, chapterwise in the manga anthology Shonen Jump, since the magazine's launch in November 2002, and in bound volumes since June 2003. As of September 2012, 65 English-language volumes have been published. In 2009, Viz Media announced the release of five volumes per month in North America during the first half of 2010, greatly increasing that number. Volume List Volumes 1 – 60 Volumes 61 – Current Chapters Not Yet In Volumes These chapters have yet to be published in a tankōbon volume. They were originally serialized in issues of Weekly Shōnen Jump from May 2012 onwards. | | | | | | | | | | |"SAD" }} Anime Toei Animation produced an anime television series based on the manga chapters, also titled One Piece. The series premiered in Japan on Fuji Television on October 20, 1999. Since then, the still ongoing series has aired more than 575 episodes and has had animated feature films (twelfth movie coming December 15, 2012). One Piece has also been exported to various countries around the world. In 2004, 4Kids Entertainment acquired the license for distribution of One Piece in North America. 4Kids collaborated with Viz Media to distribute the series for home video release. This dub was heavily edited for content, as well as length; reducing the first 143 episodes into 104. Sanji's cigarettes, for example, were turned into lollipops, and "the skin of a black pirate was changed to a tan mulatto/white color." 4Kids originally created an English version of the original opening theme; however, the music was replaced with an alternate score. The series premiered in the United States on September 18, 2004 on the Fox network as part of the Fox Box block, and later aired on the Cartoon Network in the Toonami block in April 2005. 4Kids released a statement in December 2006 confirming that it cancelled the project. In July 2010, an interview was conducted between Anime News Network and Mark Kirk, the Vice President of Digital Media for 4Kids Entertainment. In this interview, Kirk explained that 4Kids acquired One Piece as part of a package deal with other anime, and that the company did not actually watch any of the series before acquiring it. However, once 4Kids realized One Piece would not work with their intended demographic, the company decided to edit it into a more child-oriented series until they had an opportunity to legally drop the license. Kirk said the experience on producing One Piece "ruined the company's reputation." Ever since that incident, 4Kids established a more strict set of guidelines, checks, and balances to determine what anime the company acquires. Following the 4Kids dub in 2007, Funimation Entertainment began production on an English-language release of One Piece. In an interview with voice actor Christopher Sabat, Sabat stated that Funimation had been interested in acquiring One Piece from the very beginning, and produced a "test episode," in which Sabat played the character of Helmeppo and Eric Vale played the part of the main character, Luffy (they would later go on to provide the English voices for Roronoa Zoro and Sanji, respectively). After producing a new English voice dub, the company released its first unedited, bilingual DVD box set, containing 13 episodes, on May 27, 2008. Similarly sized sets followed with fourteen sets released as of October 26, 2010. The Funimation dubbed episodes premiered on the Cartoon Network on September 29, 2007 and aired until its cancellation on March 22, 2008. The remainder of Funimation's dubbed episodes continued to be aired on Australia's Cartoon Network, and then shifted into reruns of the Funimation dub before being replaced by Total Drama Island. On October 28, 2011, Funimation posted a press release on their official website, confirming the acquisition of episodes 206-263 and the aspect ratio, beginning with episode 207 onwards, will be changed to the 16:9 widescreen format. On July 28, 2012, Funimation announced that it would release episodes 264-336 of One Piece, which spans the Enies Lobby arc and ends with the filler Ice Hunter Arc, is planned for a DVD release in summer 2013. Also announced that same day was that One Piece Film: Strong World, the 10th feature film, which was written by series creator Eiichiro Oda, would be released in English. Funimation, Toei Animation, Shueisha, and Fuji TV announced in May 2009 that they would simulcast stream the series within an hour of the weekly Japanese broadcast. This free, English-subtitled simulcast is available at www.onepieceofficial.com. Originally scheduled to begin on May 30, 2009 with episode 403, a lack of security resulted in a leak of the episode. As a result, Funimation delayed the offer until August 29, 2009 at which point it began with a simulcast of episode #415. One Piece episodes are also available for streaming at Hulu.com, in both subtitled and dubbed formats, when the dub is available (with the dub being the unedited DVD release version). Category:Series Category:Weekly Shōnen Jump